Recent News


My contribution "Social Power" is now published in the Encyclopedia of Social Networks (Sage, 2011). "This two-volume reference work is a must-have resource for libraries serving researchers interested in the various fields related to social networks."


My article, "Regimes of Sharing," now appears in the German critical reader on Facebook, Generation Facebook: Über das Leben im Social Net (Verlag, 2011).


I recently delivered the paper, "Upholding Online Anonymity in Internet Governance" at GigaNet Sixth Annual Symposium. United Nations Office in Nairobi, Kenya, September 26. The Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet) is an emerging scholarly community initiated in conjunction with the UN Internet Governance Forum.


My article "Regimes of Sharing: Open APIs, Interoperability, and Facebook" was accepted for publication in the fourth Association of Internet Researchers special issue of Information, Communication & Society 14(3) (2011). The paper looks closely at the privacy implications of sharing among social media and third party websites, especially the attempts by Facebook to achieve interoperability at the cost of maintaining users' fixed online identities.


My chapter "Social Learning with Social Media: Expanding and Extending the Communication Studies Classroom" will be published in Teaching Arts and Science with the New Social Media (Emerald Publishing Group, 2011). In this chapter I look at how the affordances of social media, specifically class blogs (WordPress) and microblogs (Twitter) together, can help achieve social learning. Strategies and best practices are explored to address how social media can be utilized by educators to accommodate the heterogeneity of digital learners and engage new styles of learning.


My chapter "Privacy and Participation in the Cloud: Ethical Implications of Google's Privacy Practices and Public Communications" will be published in The Ethics of Emerging Media: Information, Social Norms, and New Media Technology in March (Continuum, 2011). "This collection provides a rare opportunity to ask how emerging media affect the ethical choices in our lives and the lives of people across the globe."


Older News

Conference
My abstract "The ethics of online anonymity" has been accepted for presentation at CEPE 2011 - Crossing Boundaries: Ethics in Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Relations, hosted by the School of Information Studies (UW-Milwaukee) and the Center for Information Policy Research (UW-Milwaukee) in May 2011. "The CEPE (Computer Ethics Philosophical Enquiry) conference series is recognized as one of the premier international events on computer and information ethics attended by delegates from all over the world."

My paper, co-authored with Lisa Wagner, "Enlightened Homophobia: The Implications of Anti-Gay Hate Speech in Online Social Networks" has been accepted for the Digital/Media, Race, Affect and Labor conference hosted by the American Cultural Studies Program at Bowling Green State University in April 2011.

I recently delivered the talk, "Opening the social media ecosystem: the tenuous nature of interoperability, crossposting, and sharing among dominant social media sites, services and devices" at the 11th Annual International and Interdisciplinary Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) – "Sustainability, Participation, Action," Gothenburg, Sweden.

Publications
My article "Social Networks as International Platforms" was published in the Special Issue, "Making the net work" of the Journal of International Communication 16, 2 (August-September 2010). In this paper I evaluate dominant trends in social network services (SNSs) and theorize how human rights and cross-cultural ethics might be embedded into the technical design of new and existing online social networks.

Internet Governance Project Award
My paper, Social Media and Global Internet Governance: Innovations and Limitations, has been awarded "The 2009 Giganet Scholarship Award", granted by the Internet Governance Project, intended to promote participation and scholarly work in Internet governance. The paper explores and assesses the potential for democratic participation in Internet governance using social media sites and services.

Social Media and Global Internet Governance: Innovations and Limitations will be presented at the 2009 GigaNet Symposium, prior to the Internet Governance Forum November 14 in Sharm-el Sheikh, Egypt. The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) supports "the United Nations Secretary-General in carrying out the mandate from the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) with regard to convening a new forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue."

The GigaNet Annual Symposium "is an opportunity to showcase some of the best current research on Internet Governance from around the world and provides a venue for scholars to discuss and debate these crucial issues." The Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet) is a "scholarly community which aims: (i) to promote the development of Internet Governance as a recognized interdisciplinary field of study and (ii) to facilitate the informed dialogue on policy and issues in a multi-stakeholder approach."


Campus News
I am developing the course Human Rights in the Digital Age, which will be offered in the first Summer Session at MSJ. This course explores each section of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), as applied to the Internet, to examine how the Internet can evolve in a way that further expands and supports these rights.


I was voted to the Steering Committee of the Dynamic Coalition of Internet Rights and Principles, which is currently updating the Charter of Human Rights and Principles on the Internet.
IRP on twitter
IRP on facebook


I am facilitating the Faculty Learning Committee "iPod Touch applications for the Classroom" this Spring 2010 at MSJ.


Come visit me in Second Life during my office hours Wednesdays, between 9:30-11:30AM here.


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Robert Bodle, Ph.D.

About

Robert Bodle is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at the College of Mount St. Joseph, where he teaches a new media studies curriculum that applies critical and ethical approaches to analyzing digital culture and technology, including the the following courses: New Media and Society, Human Rights in the Digital Age, New Media Ethics, and Social Media and Social Change. He received his doctorate in Critical Studies from the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts where he documented and analyzed various online forms of cultural activism in his dissertation Radical Culture in the Digital Age: A Study of Critical New Media Practice (2004).


Dr. Bodle's scholarly research examines information and communication technologies (ICTs) for the public good. His work is often framed as "issues of access and issues of control," and examines the tensions between digital and networked media as a positive force for social change, empowerment, and emancipation, and as a force for enclosure, discrimination, and repression. His research interests include the social and political implications of networked media, Internet governance, Internet rights and principles, information ethics, information and new media literacies, convergence culture, online privacy, political economy of new media, values-based technological design, and Web 2.0 for development (Web2forD).


Dr. Bodle has presented his work at a variety of national and international academic conferences, including the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), GigaNet Symposium, The Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (TPRC), International Association of Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC), and Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS). His research appears in The Journal of International Communication, Information, Communication & Society, The Ethics of Emerging Media: Information, Social Norms, and New Media Technology (Continuum, 2011), and Teaching Arts and Science with the New Social Media (Emerald, 2011).

Click for more information on research foci and academic development.


At the community level, Dr. Bodle has worked with a variety of nonprofits and independent media arts organizations that help give voice to underrepresented groups, support independent news and information, and use media to promote social and economic justice. He helped organize the Los Angeles chapter of the activist media network the Independent Media Center, he helped run a youth media education program that produced the documentary series - Tu Voz TV!, and is presently a non profit consultant at RED! Webzine, a site dedicated to promoting prisoner rights and their successful reentry. Dr. Bodle is also a Steering Member of the UN-based Dynamic Coalition on Internet Rights and Principles (IRP), an initiative formed by people and institutions to establish an Internet Governance regime which is founded upon human rights under the United Nations' body the Internet Governance Forum. At the Mount, Dr. Bodle integrates community service with academics leading a variety of service learning projects that utilize digital media to help support human and community development, senior's quality of life, environmental causes, and information literacy efforts.


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    Upcoming Events

    • The National Association of Communication's 97th Annual Convention will be held in New Orleans, LA (November 2011). "NCA is the largest national organization dedicated to communication. Through publications, resources, conferences, conventions, and services, NCA contributes to the greater good of education and society"